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Ongoing needless criticism of Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah’s message on prevalent insecurity and other current ills reflects a deliberate effort to ignore the message and attack the messenger, Honourable Teejay Yusuf has said.
In his Christmas message on the state of the nation, the Bishop of the Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Hassan Kukah lamented the endless woes, which he said had befallen the country.
According to Hon Yusuf who represents Kabba-Bunu/Ijumu Federal Constituency of Kogi State in the House of Representatives, needless attackss from the Feďeral Government and its bands of sycophants from the North and other parts of the country reflects untold hypocrisy and double standards.
In a statement issued in Abuja, Honourable Yusuf noted that many of those attacking Bishop Kukah have extended family members who are facing the stark realities of current waves of insecurity, unemployment and poverty that is far much worse than what obtained six years ago.
“Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah’s decision to speak truth to power was applauded during the Goodwick Jonathan era but is now being mischievously misinterpreted as a call for insurrection.
“It is even more interesting when the minister with the least level of credibility in the entire Federal Cabinet speaks against the expression of such truthful criticism about grave national issues at Christmas period.
“Just this Monday, we read news report about four different attacks carried out by bandits in Safana and Sabuwa local government areas of of Mr. President’s Katsina State whereby a newly-wedded couple and more than eight persons were abducted with several villagers nursing gunshot wounds,” he noted, adding that criticism is an essential part of democracy.
According to Hon Teejay Yusuf, those who prefer fawning sycophants to the hard truths from Bishop Kukah are very poor students of history who are indirectly sabotaging President Buhari and Nigeria’s democracy.
“In the January 6, 1994 letter from then Head of the Federal Military Government, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari to then British Prime Minister, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, he justified the treasonable coup plot that overthrew the democratically-elected Shehu Shagari administration on the basis of failure to actualize citizens’ optimistic expectations.
“Specifically, the letter highlighted corruption in the public service, ‘incompetence in the management of national resource led the nation to accumulate huge internal and external debts’, loss of jobs, inflation and insecurity “whereby hired assassins and marauders were openly beginning to practice their trade in broad daylight”.
“Today, contrary to the tripodal utopian promise of “economy, security and anti-corruption” made by the APC Federal Government, all the ills that plagued the Shagari government have become manifestly deepened in dangerous dimensions under the present APC Federal Government.
“Nevertheless, in spite of necessary criticisms and unavoidable political differences, we must all make it clear that whether it is Buhari or any future President from East, West, North or South, Nigerian citizens will resolutely resist any coup agenda by any military adventurer and their anarchist civilian cohorts,” Hon Yusuf stated.
According to the legislator, Kukah’s critics easily missed the point without realising that genuine lovers of truth and justice would rise to support Bishop Kukah against those making futile efforts to discredit his truthful message.
“Bishop Kukah spoke against currently prevalent nepotism as well as the fearsome indicators of a failed state when he raised issues of ‘endless bloodletting, a collapsing economy, social anomie, domestic and community violence, kidnappings, armed robberies’” he stated.
